The short answer
A good brief fits on one or two pages. It covers your business and customers, the goal and how you’ll measure it, today’s numbers, what’s been tried, your budget with fees and ad spend separated, the timescale, what you can supply in house, and how you’ll choose. Send the same brief to every supplier so their proposals can be compared.
In this guide
The quality of the proposals you receive depends mostly on the brief you send. A vague brief gets generic proposals that can’t be compared. A clear one gets specific plans, honest prices, and the occasional supplier telling you your idea is wrong — which is useful.
Why the brief matters more than the pitch
Suppliers can only scope what they understand. If one agency assumes you want leads and another assumes you want brand awareness, their prices and plans will differ for reasons that have nothing to do with quality. The brief removes that guesswork, and it also forces you to decide what you actually want before anyone tries to sell it to you.
What to include
| Section | What to write | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| About the business | What you sell, where, and roughly how big you are | Suppliers judge fit and scale |
| Who you sell to | Your best customers, and how they usually find and choose you | Shapes the channels and messages |
| The goal | What should change, by when, and how you’ll know | Lets suppliers propose the right route |
| Where you are now | Current enquiries or sales, what you spend, where customers come from | Gives everyone the same baseline |
| What you’ve tried | Past campaigns and suppliers, and what happened | Avoids paying to repeat mistakes |
| Budget | A range, with fees, ad spend and production shown separately | Without it, scope is guesswork |
| Timescale | Start date, key dates, and how long you expect to commit | Affects approach and price |
| What you can supply | Copy, photos, product knowledge, approvals, staff time | Changes how much work they must do |
| Constraints | Brand rules, regulated claims, markets you sell in | Keeps proposals realistic and compliant |
| How you’ll choose | Criteria, process, dates, and who decides | Sets expectations on both sides |
Share a budget range
Many owners hold back the budget, hoping to see who comes in lowest. It rarely works. Without a figure, suppliers either guess — so you get proposals for very different amounts of work — or assume the worst and pad. A range such as “2,000–3,000 a month in fees, plus up to 4,000 a month in ad spend”, in whatever currency you trade in, gets proposals you can compare.
If you don’t know what to budget, how much to spend on marketing helps you work it out from the customers you need.
A short example
Illustrative example. A made-up business, to show the level of detail — not a template to copy.
Business: An independent physiotherapy clinic with two sites in one city, open six days a week.
Customers: Adults with sports and back injuries, usually self-funding, most within 20 minutes’ drive. Most find us by searching online or through GP and friend recommendations.
Goal: Fill 40 more new-patient appointments a month within six months, measured by bookings in our booking system with a “how did you hear about us” answer.
Today: Around 120 new patients a month. We spend about £800 a month on Google Ads, run by us, with no conversion tracking.
Tried: A social media agency in 2025; enquiries didn’t change, so we stopped.
Budget: £1,000–£1,500 a month in fees, plus up to £2,000 a month in ad spend.
We can supply: Clinician time for two short videos a month, photos of both sites, fast approvals from the practice manager.
Choosing: Proposals by the end of next month; a call with two shortlisted agencies; the practice manager and a director decide together.
Mistakes that make quotes impossible to compare
- Briefing on the service instead of the goal — “we need SEO” rather than “we need more bookings from local searches”.
- Sending different versions to different suppliers, or adding detail in calls that others never hear.
- Hiding problems — a broken website or poor reviews will surface anyway, usually after you’ve signed.
- No budget, so every proposal is sized differently.
- No decision process, so suppliers can’t tell when to follow up or what matters to you.
When the proposals come back, check each one before you sign.
What to do next
- Fill in each section of the table above, even roughly.
- Decide a budget range and separate fees, ad spend and production.
- Pull your current numbers so every supplier works from the same baseline.
- Send the same brief to two or three suppliers, with a date for proposals.
Apply this to your business
Create your marketing brief
Answer askBizly’s questions and it writes the brief for you — goal, budget, timing and what good looks like — ready to edit and send. With a free account, it can also look for partners on its records who fit.
Free to use. Create a free account when you want to save your plan and come back to it.